Scott McMillan : Endurance Junky

Well last week was my first “solid” week of training in probably 10 months.
On Tuesday I did an actual tempo run over a hilly loop in Stanley Park for just under 60 minutes and on Thursday I returned to VFAC for my second interval work out and boy was it a hard one… we did the dreaded “double single” which is one ~5.1k loop followed by a 2.55k loop yikes! It’s more or less like doing a race after a day of work… and the loop is not easy it starts on a gradual incline for the first 600m which really gets you HR up.
For the 5.1K I averaged 188 bpm peaking at 198, for the short loop I averaged 188bpm also peaking at 196bpm. The interesting thing my lungs felt fine it was the legs that were Jello.
It will be interesting to see how I progress over the next few sessions.

Saturday and Sunday were followed by 2 hilly 1 hour+ runs.

Bike commuted Mon-Friday with Mon, Wed and Friday longish after work.

All in all my leg feels OK still a little tight after running but OK. I think it will take me a good month before I regain my “leg endurance”.

Well I finally made it back to VFAC intervals for my first club workout session since last June. Man was it painful, the workout was 2 x 1 7/8 miles the first interval I took it fairly easy but still faster than I have run in an extended burst in almost a year, the second interval I could feel my right quad tightening so I floated through it. Although I only did 2 intervals at ~85% I felt my legs for almost 2 days after, my body is just not used to that intensity. I am looking forward to the next workout I know it can only get better.

I have decided I will only be doing 3 runs per week for at least the next month. I will try to do Tempos on Tuesday, VFAC intervals on Thursday and a long run on Sunday. Instead of doing base run days I am going to do more miles on the bike I have been riding to work 5 days a week for the last three weeks and will continue to do so but on Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays I will extend the ride home by 60 minutes for a total of 2+ hours of riding on those days. That will bring me to over 9 hours of riding Monday - Friday, on Saturdays I have started to do long bike rides of 2-3 hours I hope to extend this up to 4-5 hours over the next couple months. This should bring my weekly hour total to 12-13 hours which is OK training for me at this point.

I decided to take a clean break from running for 2 weeks which seems to be helping. I never like taking two steps backwards to go two steps forward but I had to do this in this case or I may never heal.

I have also started riding my XC mountain bike to work to do some rips though the endowment lands a couple days a week which is great fun, the park is almost empty before work so I can get some good speed going. This rips make me realize how much I miss XC and I am thinking of doing the Cow Trail Classic in Merrit in late May.

Did some surfing during a short trip to Tofino on the weekend for Matt’s stag which was quite the workout, I am still sore as I type this!

Hopefully I will have actual training to report next weekend.

Well the last 2 weeks have been spent trying to heal so no real training to report. I started going to massage therapy in hopes of relieving the muscle spasms in my leg. It seems to be helping. I also got my Jake set up in a less agressive position now and it seems to put less stress on my quads and hip flexors. I should have had my bike set up like this ages ago. Thanks Paul for the tips.

On Good Friday I did manage to do a nice little XC mountain bike ride up in Squamish with Tara, Kim and Steve it was very low key and fun. The trails were in perfect condition and the weather was ideal. I really would like to do more XC mountain bike riding it is fun and a great whole body workout unlike road biking. I hope to make it upto Whistler and maybe the interior to do some riding.

I should start referring to this as my weekly whine and complain blog. This week saw my return to racing, I entered the Ironlung 10k Run Inn Sane Trail Race which is a great trail run through Pacific Spirit Park but unfortunately for me it was also a painful experience… I saw 300 the night before so I tried to race like a Spartan would, Spartan law says “Never Retreat Never Surrender”, I felt like surrendering after the first kilometer but grinned and bared my way through it. My sole goal of not getting beat by Cody did not happen, after the first km I knew my leg was not ready for a race even at Cody pace. It was still great to get out and see the local trail runners and continue to build my pain threshold… which maybe my strongest asset soon.

This weeks training:
1 x bike commute total 1:10
Wednesday run: 1:10 easy no HR data
Friday run: 37:00 easy no HR data
Sunday: Run Inn Sane Trail Race
Was supposed to be a 10k but my GPS read 9.6km (did not hit stop until about 10 meters past the finish).
Time: 40:56
AHR: 181
MHR: 191
Comments:
Leg felt like shit, but it felt good to get the HR up and participate in a trail race.
HR Profile:

Week 11 was a mini vacation week. I went out to Calgary to visit family. It was a good break we did some pretty cool hikes and snowshoes up in Kananaskis and Lake Louise which were kind of hard coming from sea level. One snowshoe we were around 7000ft in soft snow which I found quite difficult.

The weeks training consisted of
4 bike commutes total 4:50
1 run 45 mins
and 3 hike/snowshoes total: 6:15

Here is my slide show.

Training sort of. Still recovering from my slow climb out of the injury/dead leg hole. I was reading IMPACT magazine and they had a section and body weight and race performance. They mentioned that if you are carrying over 7% of your “race weight” you are at higher risk of injuries… well I am in that range right now.

Anyways here is this weeks training:

Bike Commute:
Monday/Thurs 2x 1:10 = 2:20

Tues, March 06
Time: 0:39:33
AHR: 165
MHR: 187

Sat,March 10
Time: 01:11:14
AHR: 144
MHR: 162

Sun, March 11
Time:01:06:57
AHR: 159
MHR: 189

Cool little article in the Escapes section of the NY Times. It’s really cool because I was mentioned

Tough Tests With Softer Footing
By STEPHEN REGENOLD
Published: March 9, 2007
This spring, dozens of trail-running races around the country are expected to draw crowds of enthusiastic contestants and spectators.

Also note the author Stephen Regenold is the Gear Junkie and I am the Endurance Junky… I wonder if Junkie is the American version of Junky? When I picked the domain “endurancejunky.com” I used Junky because I was sure William S. Burroughs used “Junky” in his classic novel but now looking at the original prints on his wiki pages it seems that “Junkie” was his original choice.

50th Anniversary Reprint:

Original:

From reading the recent trail running article in the Georgia Straight I came across the new Canadian Mountain Running website. I have to say it’s about time, the previous site had very little info on the team/association. From the site info it seems that the Canmore Challenge will be the NACAC Championship race this year as well as the Canadian Mountain Running team primary selection race which is cool because I was planning on doing this race this summer (not to try and make the team) but because I hear it is an amazing race and also because of the fact I have family in Calgary so it is a good excuse to go for a visit. The 5peaks Cypress Bowl race will be a qualifying race for those wanting to compete for Canada at the NACAC for the BC region.

This week more or less sucked for training. My right hip flexor was beyond tight so I decided to drop the bike commuting and do only shory “easy runs”. Hopefully I can have a good week of training this week. I was planning on doing the Harry Rosen 8k on Sunday which seems pretty unlikely now, I will consider it a donation to cancer research.

Thurs, March 1st.
Time: 0:33:34
AHR: 169
MHR: 188

Sat, March 3rd
Easy trail run with Tara.
Time: 0:48:12
AHR: 139
MHR: 179

Sun, March 4th
Lynn Canyon trail run with Cody. Was nice running on the North Shore.
Time: 1:05:07
AHR: 147
MHR: 177

I brought the camera on the Sunday run, I am experimenting with a web app that will take my GPS track trace it over Google Maps and pull the “geotagged” Flickr photos into the map. Anyways that is still in alpha here are some shots for the run for now.

Me running through a mossy section of trail in the Lynn Canyon.

Cody crossing the suspension bridge. He was scared.

Cody running through the snow in the Lynn Headwaters area. We turned around shortly after. He didn’t want to slip, he’s a triathlete they are kind of wusses in that way.

A water shot, why Lynn Canyon is there.